BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) \u2014 Ireland has kept its World Cup hopes alive with a stunning comeback win against Hungary. <\/p>\n
Troy Parrott, the unheralded Ireland striker who sent Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s Portugal to a 2-0 loss on Thursday, did even better on Sunday with a hat trick. <\/p>\n
He struck in the sixth minute of second-half stoppage time in Budapest to complete his hat trick in a 3-2 win that secured Ireland\u2019s place in the playoffs for next year\u2019s tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico. <\/p>\n
After beating Portugal, the Irish still needed victory at second-placed Hungary to seal the runner-up position in Group F.<\/p>\n
But trailing 2-1 heading into the 80th minute, it took a dramatic fightback to claim the win. <\/p>\n
Parrott leveled by lifting a shot over Hungary goalkeeper Denes Dibusz and, with the clock running down, he converted from close range for the winner deep into added time. <\/p>\n
Parrott, who plays for Dutch club AZ Alkmaar in the Eredivisie, capped an unforgettable week for him personally and Ireland with five goals in two games. <\/p>\n
Hungary led after three minutes through Daniel Lukacs, with Parrott equalizing from the penalty spot in the 15th. <\/p>\n
Barnabas Varga put Hungary ahead for a second time before halftime.<\/p>\n
But Parrott\u2019s late double consigned the hosts to third place, with group winner Portugal routing Armenia 9-1. <\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) \u2014 Ireland has kept its World Cup hopes alive with a stunning comeback win against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-287306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}